Romano Prodi moved a step closer to becoming Italy's prime minister yesterday when the interior ministry lowered the number of contested ballots in the closely fought election, making it more likely that his narrow victory will stand.

As judges were counting contested ballots and Italians awaited the final word, Mr Prodi reiterated his confidence, while his opponent and incumbent prime minister Silvio Berlusconi refused to concede.

"The match is over," Mr Prodi said from Bologna where he was spending Easter weekend, was quoted as saying by Italian agency Apcom. "Now let's move on."

Mr Berlusconi said he had not spoken to Mr Prodi and indicated he had no intention of conceding. "We carry on, we'll resist," he told a small group of supporters gathered outside his residence.

In a letter to be published today in the daily Corriere della Sera, Mr Berlusconi said the situation was stalled. "At least on the basis of the popular vote, there's no winner and no loser," Italian news agencies quoted the letter as saying.

Italy has been mired in uncertainty since the general election earlier this week. Mr Prodi's centre-left coalition won a thin majority in both houses of parliament, but Mr Berlusconi alleged irregularities and demanded thorough checks.

Yesterday the interior ministry said there were only about 5,200 contested ballots compared with the more than 80,000 previously indicated.

The new figures were not enough for Mr Berlusconi to reverse the electoral result, even with a gap as narrow as the one dividing the two coalitions.

The interior ministry said the confusion was because blank ballots had been lumped in by mistake with the contested ballots, which are those where the voting intentions are not clear. It stressed in a statement the data were provisional.

But centre-left leaders accused the government of keeping the country in a state of uncertainty. "The masquerade of Berlusconi and Forza Italia has finally been revealed by the interior ministry," said a statement by the Democrats of the Left, the largest party supporting Mr Prodi. The statement accused Mr Berlusconi of mounting a "false" campaign.

The minister for Italians abroad, Mirko Tremaglia, called for a new vote, saying yesterday that some 228,000 expatriate voters - about 10% of the total - had not received the electoral material in time.